Rough start for D’Alberto at Queensland Raceway

Tony D’Alberto had his work cut out for him at Queensland Raceway this afternoon, shouldering a hard nudge in the opening laps that sent the car off track. D’Alberto worked hard to win back lost ground, bringing the car to a finish in 23rd position.

D’Alberto began the day with qualifying, notching up 14 laps and his fastest on lap 14 in a time of 1:11.4508. He was less than a second off the pace of the lead car, once again showing he could quickly get the measure of a circuit and produce tidy laps.

The start to race 1 left D’Alberto at a disadvantage with contact occurring early on in the opening laps. D’Alberto fought to move forward, holding out his pitstop until lap 9. The crew performed a speedy pitstop, returning the car to the track in good time.

For the remaining laps D’Alberto managed to gain a few more positions, bringing the car across the line in 23rd. The #55 Bottle-O Commodore clocked its fastest lap of the race on lap 14 in a time of 1:12.4803.

D’Alberto was pleased with the car’s set-up and is keen to push for a better result on Sunday.

“Car set-up was fine -We need to make a few tweaks to try and get a little better front grip,” D’Alberto said, “The car lasted the whole race pretty well and the times at the end of the race were still pretty competitive.

“The car also handled the high speed corners really well, which was good. For tomorrow we’ll make a few minor changes but won’t need to make any big changes to the car‘s set-up.”

D’Alberto will return to the track on Sunday to battle out two more races to complete the round.

Copyright © Rod Nash Racing 2008

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